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You are here: Home / Politics / Trumpery / Dolt 45 / Tricky Dickless

Tricky Dickless

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Looks like Orange Julius Caesar tried to go the full Nixon:

President Trump ordered the firing last June of Robert S. Mueller III, the special counsel overseeing the Russia investigation, according to four people told of the matter, but ultimately backed down after the White House counsel threatened to resign rather than carry out the directive.

The West Wing confrontation marks the first time Mr. Trump is known to have tried to fire the special counsel. Mr. Mueller learned about the episode in recent months as his investigators interviewed current and former senior White House officials in his inquiry into whether the president obstructed justice.

This fucking guy. And this should be fucking amazing:

President Trump said Wednesday he is “looking forward” to testifying under oath to special counsel Robert S. Mueller III as part of the probe of Russian interference in the 2016 election while also mounting a preemptive defense of potential obstruction accusations.

“I would love to do it, and I would like to do it as soon as possible,” Trump told reporters at the White House. “I would do it under oath, absolutely.”

The president suggested he could be investigated for obstruction of justice as part of the Russia investigation because he was “fighting back” and reiterated there was “no collusion” between his campaign and Moscow.

“Oh, well, ‘Did he fight back?’ ” Trump said, “You fight back, ‘Oh, it’s obstruction.’ ”

Considering his casual relationship with the truth, which actually is more rape than relationship because he just grabs it by the pussy and has his way with it, he’ll definitely perjure himself if he does. So do it, Donald! Do it!

Reader Interactions

239Comments

  1. 1.

    lamh36

    Wow…look at Maggie H trying to get on the right side of history? Or has she given up on “access journalism”?

  2. 2.

    Cheryl Rofer

    One of my fave lawyers on Twitter –

  9. 9.

    Feebog

    I hope he refuses the interview and Mueller hauls his fat ass in front of the Grand Jury. No lawyer, he will talk his way into multiple counts of obstruction, money laundering and conspiracy.

  10. 10.

    Corner Stone

    Wonder which way Trump will tweet about this? That it’s Fake News and never happened? Or that if he had wanted to it would have been fine and no staff member could have stopped him.

  11. 11.

    oldgold

    How can you have an investigation when the individual being investigated has the power to fire the investigator; particularly, given the character of Trump and the GOP?

    It is not a tenable situation. Just effing ridiculous.

  15. 15.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    I’m not happy about this, I don’t think the Rs in Congress will flinch.

    But I find a silver lining in the fact that somebody in the White House decided to take a dump on Davos.

  16. 16.

    marcopolo

    @David Anderson: From the previous thread–there is a gold toilet at the Guggenheim for actual sitting shitting.

    Otherwise, if Mueller gets fired for real we hits the streets:

    NOBODY IS ABOVE THE LAW—MUELLER FIRING RAPID RESPONSE
    Donald Trump is publicly considering firing special counsel Robert Mueller, the person leading the Department of Justice investigation of possible illegal actions by Donald Trump and members of his presidential campaign, and the efforts to conceal those activities.

    This would be a constitutional crisis for our country. It would demand an immediate and unequivocal response to show that we will not tolerate abuse of power from Donald Trump.

    Our response in the minutes and hours following a power grab will dictate what happens next, and whether Congress—the only body with the constitutional power and obligation to rein Trump in from his rampage—will do anything to stand up to him.

    That’s why we’re preparing to hold emergency “Nobody is Above the Law” rallies around the country in the event they are needed.

  17. 17.

    JPL

    All it proves is Trump is a coward. When he couldn’t get cover from the White House Counsel, he chickened out. Paul and Mitch wouldn’t even blink, if it happened. There loyalty is to the Koch family.

  18. 18.

    Mike in NC

    Being a pathological liar who can’t go five minutes without telling a preposterous whopper, Trump will go to any length to never sit down with Mueller’s team.

  20. 20.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Cheryl Rofer: @David Anderson: Not only that, but more seriously than my flippant response, it isn’t going to go down because the President is a coward. He’s the worst type of bully, the one who folds the minute there’s a bit of pushback. And to be perfectly honest, most of the knuckleheads that have convinced themselves in comments sections at places most of the people here don’t read that they’re going to go all modern American revolutionary 3% tacticool on everyone else aren’t going to do so either. They’ll show up, they’ll threaten, and the first time someone drops one of them they’ll put their hands up. Happened with two carloads of Snack Team 6 after they watched Finicum live out his patriot-martyr fantasy. The Bundy brothers and the rest of their hangers on capitulated right quick after that.

    These people are in for the surprise of their lives when someone decides to teach them the old saw “G-d made man, Samuel Colt made all men equal” doesn’t just apply to white, Christian people.

  23. 23.

    Manyakitty

    @David Anderson: Right??? Like I said a couple stops below, with the gusher of info we already got this week, I’m a little scared of tomorrow’s news dump. Feels like shit is starting to go down for real.

  28. 28.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Mr Stagger Lee: Actually in that case Bork got a bad rap. Watergate Assistant Special Prosecutor Nick Ackerman recently related on Ari Melber’s MSNBC show that Rucklehaus told him before he died that Rucklehaus, Richardson, and Bork had worked up a strategy to protect the DOJ from President Nixon completely subverting it and destroying the rule of law in case he ordered the firing of Special Counsel Cox. The strategy was that Richardson would refuse and resign. If that didn’t cause Nixon to rethink and retract his orders, then Rucklehaus would refuse and resign. If that didn’t cause Nixon to rethink and retract his orders, then Bork would carry them out and remain so that Nixon couldn’t replace all three of them and completely subvert the Department of Justice.

    While Judge Bork’s judicial philosophy, which I always found more coherent and interesting than Scalia’s and Thomas’s – even as I disagree with it, is extremely conservative. He has gotten a bad rap in regard to the Saturday Night Massacre.

  29. 29.

    marcopolo

    Little OT but still we need something to lighten the place up:

    Rep. Pat Meehan will not seek reelection amid a furor over his use of taxpayer dollars to settle a sexual harassment claim lodged by an aide, and the national response to his describing the woman as his “soul mate.”

    “After consultation with my wife Carolyn and with my three sons, and after prayerful reflection, I write to inform you that I will not seek re-election to the United States Congress for the 7th Congressional District in 2018,” the Delaware County Republican wrote Thursday in a letter to his campaign chairman. “Today I communicated the same to the office of Speaker Paul Ryan.”

    I am pretty sure this will make the district (depending on how the pre-November redistricting goes) lean D in the mid-terms. Savvier folks than I have suggested the state GOP (which holds the lede) might just concede this district to the Ds in exchange for making some surrounding ones slighter more safe for R incumbents.

  31. 31.

    Mary G

    @Adam L Silverman: Sometimes I fantasize about a group of these maroons deciding to invade California, thinking it’s a piece of cake because we don’t have a lot of guns. We would be Macaulay Culkin disposing of Joe Pesci and Daniel Stern.

  32. 32.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Sab: I was teasing. Though if you want to understand irregular, asymmetric, and unconventional warfare you might as well learn from, perhaps, the best strategist of them. Strategists like Giap are rare. Sun Tzu (or whoever actually wrote the Art of War), Jominy, Clausewitz, Mahan, Giap, Fall. There aren’t a lot of these guys around. And if they are, they don’t tend to write this stuff down.

  33. 33.

    JGabriel

    @Corner Stone:

    Wonder which way Trump will tweet about this? That it’s Fake News and never happened? Or that if he had wanted to it would have been fine and no staff member could have stopped him.

    Both. They’re not mutually contradictory.

    Though even if they were, that’s never stopped Trump before.

  34. 34.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @lamh36: Melania. “I will show you a stormy spanking. Better be fucking opening me a bank account in Switzerland!”

  36. 36.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Mary G: As I’ve repeatedly written: one or more of these morons is going to get in the face of a well off, professional ethnic American who conceal carries and pull their MAGA and America First and white supremacy crap in a stand your ground state. And that person is going to stand their ground. And at that point there will be a significant amount of rethinking a number of arguments regarding the 2nd Amendment, as well as liberty and freedom.

  37. 37.

    Patricia Kayden

    @JPL: He has no shame so he can say pretty much anything once he goes off script. He doesn’t represent me so I won’t be embarrassed or shocked.

  40. 40.

    Cheryl Rofer

    @Adam L Silverman: I have long been saying that Trump is a coward who can’t even fire people. I think I said it on an earlier thread today, although it might have been on Twitter, and now that I recall, it was that he won’t start a war deliberately. He’s stupid enough to blunder into one, though.

    He is a coward, and we see that over and over again. He can’t even straightforwardly disagree with people because he so wants their approval. And yeah, he’s not going to fire anyone. Although he could mess up somehow if nobody like McGahn is around to help him out.

  47. 47.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Cheryl Rofer: No arguments at all.

    Although he could mess up somehow if nobody like McGahn is around to help him out.

    This is honestly my biggest worry. Despite all the legitimate concerns and gripes with many of the people working in the senior White House positions, right now these are the closest we’re getting to the best personnel that this administration will have. Usually you start an administration with a whole bunch of A listers, they start to filter out between the end of year one and year two to be replaced by more junior, less experienced people who because of the experience they’ll pick up, become A listers for the next administration from their preferred party. But in this case almost all the A listers aren’t really A listers. And when they go, they’re not going to get replaced, if they get replaced at all, with smart and competent, but less experienced B listers. So regardless of what you think of them, imagine what you’re going to have around the President when McGahn and McMaster and Mattis decide it is time to move on? Stephen Miller is on record stating he plans to serve for all four years. Does anyone really want Miller left alone in the White House with the President without McGahn or McMaster or Mattis or even Kelly around?

  55. 55.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Omnes Omnibus: Senator Warner has already says he’s got no stomach for completely revisiting and redoing the entire US immigration system right now. DACA fix, a couple of other tweaks/adjustments, but that’s it. The issue isn’t going to be the Senate, there aren’t 60 votes for what Miller is peddling, let alone the Cotton-Perdue plan. The issue is going to be the House. Even if you get a clean DACA fix with a sweetener or two, such as some border security enhancement money, Ryan will never violate the Hastert Rule to bring it up for a vote in the House. And the Freedom Caucus and the Republican Study Group (combined that’s about 180 or so GOP members of the House) have already said they want something much more in line with what Miller pitched today. My estimate is what Miller pitched today was created in collaboration with the Freedom Caucus and the Study Group. They intend to jam the Senate, not have the Senate jam them.

  56. 56.

    Jeffro

    Btw, Twitter Dick Nixon ( and people replying to him ) are absolutely hysterical at the moment , in a good way

  57. 57.

    Marcopolo

    @schrodingers_cat: As I am learning the details this does sound worse and worse. Not much of a DACA reprieve with that #2. After all, how many of us have stayed fully employed every year for a decade or a decade & a half (at least since the new century). Staying long-term fully employed used to be easier.

  58. 58.

    Corner Stone

    @Adam L Silverman:

    Does anyone really want Miller left alone in the White House with the President without McGahn or McMaster or Mattis or even Kelly around?

    McGahn, McMaster and Mattis have nothing to do with it. Kelly is at minimum backstopping Miller, at worst turbocharging him.

  59. 59.

    jl

    If Mueller is following the money and collusion wherever it leads, his team might do more to fend off future Russian attempts at corrupting voter rolls and elections than the malevolently negligent Congress. Trumpsters may have been too bumbling and incompetent to be worth colluding with, so Russia finally decided went through NRA to actually get something done. The real action might be up that road, unless one problem is Trump did a deal, took some money from oligarchs, and couldn’t deliver (which would not be surprising). Edit, and I am not sure even Trump is dumb enough to have done that last bit, though it is a possibility.

  61. 61.

    Kay

    @AaronBlake
    5m5 minutes ago
    More
    Kellyanne Conway in August, 2 months after Trump’s aborted firing of Mueller, denied it was even discussed:
    “The president hasn’t even discussed that.”

    They all lie so much you wonder if they believe anything they say to one another. Ask Kellyanne, she’ll lie and then ask several other people, who will probably lie also.

  62. 62.

    Corner Stone

    @Jeffro: Just seems tiresome to keep having people doubt that this person will do any and every thing he can to save his ass.

  63. 63.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Shana: Correct. They had determined, correctly, that there was a loophole in California’s firearm laws regarding open carry of unloaded long guns. So they took to carrying unloaded rifles and shotguns everywhere. When they showed up at the state capital, armed with their unloaded rifles and shotguns, to protest on the same day a bunch of school kids (read that as white school kids) and their teachers and chaperones were there. As you can imagine a good time was had by all resulting in Governor Reagan and the California legislature hitting the brakes to write, pass, and sign restrictive gun control legislation so hard it left skid marks.

  65. 65.

    Marcopolo

    @Shana: Yes. The image of POC walking around on the streets with long guns in Oakland freaked out a lot of uncolored politicians.

    Edit—see Adam beat me to it.

  67. 67.

    JPL

    @Patricia Kayden: The one thing that did happen is the republicans can no longer turn a blind eye, so to speak. He’ll go off script and I like you won’t care, but now some will no longer be able to support him, if and when he does.

  71. 71.

    Gravenstone

    Which goes to show what already knew. Trump is a moron, bully and ultimately a coward. Not necessarily in that order.

  74. 74.

    Adam L Silverman

    @realbtl: I was just fortunate I had the TV on in the background when Ackerman related it. Had he not done so, I wouldn’t know either. Apparently Rucklehaus, Richardson, and Bork never really talked about it. Makes you wonder what other important bits and bobs or babs of history we don’t know because the principles decided not to talk about it.

  76. 76.

    JMG

    @Adam L Silverman: Reaction from the House Rs was not favorable, or so several Congressional reporters have posted on Twitter. They don’t want any concessions at all. Whole thing’s off the table for a day or two now, as tomorrow will be all Trump-Mueller all the time and those Rs will be making themselves unavailable for comment. Then comes the weekend. And you’d be surprised, or probably not, to know how many of our elected officials will be traveling to the Super Bowl next week.

  77. 77.

    Another Scott

    Remember that $1,000,000,000,000 Infrastructure Bill? Yeah, that one.

    Roll Call:

    Trump Adviser Says Infrastructure Push Won’t Have New Revenue

    Amtrak, transit programs will be cut instead, he says

    White House infrastructure adviser DJ Gribbin told a gathering of the U.S. Conference of Mayors on Thursday that the Trump administration’s upcoming infrastructure proposal will not include any new revenue to pay for $200 billion of new federal spending.

    The White House’s proposal, to be shared one to two weeks after the Jan. 30 State of the Union address, would be paid for with money from existing transportation programs, Gribbin said, adding that existing formula funding for major programs would not be touched. He later clarified that certain federal transportation money, including for Amtrak and transit programs, would be cut to pay for the program.

    […]

    Tomato, tomato, potato, potato.

    Seriously – Was anyone ever fooled by this? Beuler? Beuler?

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  79. 79.

    Adam L Silverman

    @JMG: Tomorrow AM Davos time, middle of the night our time, will be the President’s speech to the World Economic Forum. So that should go well to now that he’ll be stewing all night about this revelation in the Times.

  80. 80.

    quakerinabasement

    Usually, Trump phrases his denial as: “There IS no collusion.” Maybe it depends of the meaning of “is.”

  81. 81.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Another Scott: Imagine that, the one funding cut these chuckleheads are going to do is to the type of transportation one finds in NY, NJ, MA, Philadelphia, etc. I’m sure Gary Cohn is going to get an earful from his Wall Street buddies. If the President keeps this up, he won’t be able to go back to Trump Tower when he leaves office because New Yorkers will prevent it.

  83. 83.

    Marcopolo

    So what’s the probability that it’s actually McGahn who is doing the leaking? I know he is the President’s legal counsel which would mean he’d be breaking all kinds of ethical/professional boundaries but at least in theory he is actually really the lawyer for the White House (i.e. the office of the President not necessarily the occupant). Just a crazy thought.

  84. 84.

    Adam L Silverman

    @quakerinabasement: Actually if you read what he said last night closely, he actually admitted offhandedly that the campaign had been in touch with Russia. Just that there was nothing wrong with it. I’ve seen two types of analysis on this: 1) He just admitted to what he and his people and supporters have been denying or 2) it sounds like it, but it is part of his normal garbled, mangled word salad, so…

  85. 85.

    efgoldman

    @Feebog:

    he refuses the interview and Mueller hauls his fat ass in front of the Grand Jury.

    It’s a real constitutional question whether Mueller can. Even if yes, it it will be tied up in court forever and ever amen.
    Paula Jones isn’t necessarily on point. That was civil litigation, this would be criminal.

  92. 92.

    Adam L Silverman

    @M. Bouffant:

    I’m eagerly awaiting the gun battle between the Secret Service & the U.S. Marshals

    Eagles of Justice, sent by the Marshal of the Supreme Court on behalf of the 46th President of the United States Orin Hatch to drag them to the gallows being erected on Pennsylvania Avenue. Or something like that.//

  94. 94.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @JR: I think that Boney is included in this: And if they are, they don’t tend to write this stuff down.

  97. 97.

    mike in dc

    @efgoldman: US v Nixon and the Clinton case both tend to point strongly towards Trump having to testify. And he has no presidential defense to testifying about pre-presidential activities during the campaign and transition period. I can’t imagine it taking longer than a year and a half, and in the Nixon case SCOTUS ruled pretty quickly.

  99. 99.

    JMG

    @Marcopolo: Oh, I think it’s obvious McGahn’s the leak. For one thing, he’s the good guy in the story. He is signaling to both Mueller and Trump’s lawyers that he thinks he’s being asked to do things that could put his own butt in legal jeopardy and he;ll squeal rather than do that.

  100. 100.

    jl

    The regular news is becoming a weird half-baked SNL skit that I don’t get. I think that even after the FBI secret society BS was revealed to be asinine BS based on one joke text, GOP Housers are on TV still saying it is serious and needs to be investigated?

    Do I have the right? If so, do they have any idea how moronic it looks to everyone? I note the GOP Senator, Kennedy, just admitted that it might have been a joke. But the House GOPers are still flailing away. Makes me wonder how much of the House GOP Mueller might scoop up before he’s done.

  101. 101.

    efgoldman

    @Cheryl Rofer:

    he won’t start a war deliberately. He’s stupid enough to blunder into one, though.

    This isn’t the 14th century. The sovereign no longer leads the troops on the battlefield. He can stay comfy in his LaZ-Boy while the killing goes on.

  103. 103.

    Bobby Thomson

    @efgoldman: Jones v. Clinton isn’t on point, but U.S. v. Nixon definitely is.

    To read the Art. II powers of the President as providing an absolute privilege as against a subpoena essential to enforcement of criminal statutes on no more than a generalized claim of the public interest in confidentiality of nonmilitary and nondiplomatic discussions would upset the constitutional balance of “a workable government” and gravely impair the role of the courts under Art. III.

  114. 114.

    Adam L Silverman

    @mike in dc: And if you’re Trump’s attorneys, do you really want to give Mueller 18 more months to poke around while you wait for this to be resolved right in the middle of the 2020 campaign cycle?

  115. 115.

    Adam L Silverman

    @JMG: He’s already been interviewed by Mueller’s team. I’m sure he’s already told them this information.

  117. 117.

    Adam L Silverman

    @jl: You’re not dealing with very smart people here. Nor ones with a lot of integrity either.

  124. 124.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @M. Bouffant: The Secret Service are there to protect the President from physical harm. They aren’t his goon squad. That’s ICE and the Border Patrol.

  127. 127.

    jl

    @Omnes Omnibus: Burr better be telling the truth when he promised that the new secret private military force slush fund would be gone within a month. Otherwise maybe Trump can hire himself his private WH goon squad under cover of law.

  129. 129.

    Cheryl Rofer

  131. 131.

    efgoldman

    @Bobby Thomson:

    Jones v. Clinton isn’t on point, but U.S. v. Nixon definitely is.

    As I said, memory is foggy over 40+ years, but didn’t US vs Nixon compel release of the tapes, rather than Tricksie’s direct testimony before a grand jury? Or did the decision say they could call him, but they never did?

  135. 135.

    TS

    @Marcopolo: I hear that he is the counsel to the Presidency – not to the President. And my thought is he does not want to be the next John Dean. He is not going to prison for this President

  139. 139.

    efgoldman

    @?BillinGlendaleCA:

    Eh, with what army?

    Correct.
    It doesn’t take a regiment to fire a missile.
    I think, and have thought, that somehow Mattis and the boys would stop it,but you never know…..

  140. 140.

    Adam L Silverman

    @jl: That wasn’t a private military force slush fund. Rather it was a relaxing/waiving of the rules for reprogramming funds for the intel community, thereby functionally removing them from congressional oversight.

  141. 141.

    Marcopolo

    @Cheryl Rofer: I’m actually positing McGahn as a modern day deepthroat or John Dean and to have been leaking stuff all along(for months) , not just tonight’s nugget.

    Want to give a shout out to Lawrence O’Donnell who just gave credit to April Ryan for originally reporting out this story (that Trump was thinking about firing Mueller) back in June. She scooped it first, though it didn’t get the attention it deserved at the time.

  142. 142.

    efgoldman

    @Cheryl Rofer:

    he doesn’t want to be responsible for the killing.

    I really don’t think he cares. They’re not people, they’re abstractions His mind doesn’t work that way. Guilt isn’t an emotion associated with pure idiot narcissism.

  143. 143.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Adam L Silverman: With all due respect, I still see them acting as a goon squad. I may be less vocal about it that s_c but immigration is a hot button issue for me. It touches too many people I care about. And so many others.

  147. 147.

    Jeffro

    @Patricia Kayden: Well, it was always going to be interesting knowing that Trumpov’s opening statement…and all the following ones…were just going to be, “Didja ask Hillary that? Under oath? Didjadidjadidja? THOT NOT!!!”

  148. 148.

    Mary G

    @Omnes Omnibus: Me three. I’ve had Miller on my radar since he was acting up in high school and he is straight out of the Hitler fan club, and I have never Godwinned before. that I can think of.

    ETA: And I have a lot of experience with ICE & CBP and they were all straight out pigs.

    @efgoldman: I’m afraid he thinks starting a war will up his approval ratings/distract from the avalanche of Mueller news that’s starting down the mountain.

  150. 150.

    TS

    @Marcopolo:

    Want to give a shout out to Lawrence O’Donnell who just gave credit to April Ryan for originally reporting out this story (that Trump was thinking about firing Mueller) back in June. She scooped it first, though it didn’t get the attention it deserved at the time.

    And we don’t have to guess why April’s reporting doesn’t get the attention it deserves

  152. 152.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Omnes Omnibus: Without a doubt. No argument here. They are definitely doing that. But that is different than having a praetorian guard inside the White House to protect the President from anything and everything.

  159. 159.

    Jeffro

    Sorta on-topic, just occurred to me to ask: is there some sort of national moratorium on media figures asking GOP elected officials about how they feel about “TRUMP NEWS ITEM #1!”, “TRUMP NEWS ITEM #2!!”, or “TRUMP NEWS ITEM #3!!!” on any given day?

    It’s endless opining by Dems and media talking heads. Where’s the on-camera Qs for Rubio, Cruz, Ernst, Ryan, McConnell, and so on? (Ideally, in the reverse): “Senator/Speaker, if a Democratic president had been about to attempt to fire a Special Counsel looking into his & his campaign’s collaboration with a hostile foreign power, and then his personal attorney talked him out of it…would you want to know what that was all about?”

    And so on.

    Let’s get some cameras and recorders in front of the Goopers! Right now they’re having it both ways and paying no price for their tacit acceptance of treason.

  160. 160.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Immanentize: As I wrote above:
    https://balloon-juice.com/2018/01/25/tricky-dickless/#comment-6729752

    Actually in that case Bork got a bad rap. Watergate Assistant Special Prosecutor Nick Ackerman recently related on Ari Melber’s MSNBC show that Rucklehaus told him before he died that Rucklehaus, Richardson, and Bork had worked up a strategy to protect the DOJ from President Nixon completely subverting it and destroying the rule of law in case he ordered the firing of Special Counsel Cox. The strategy was that Richardson would refuse and resign. If that didn’t cause Nixon to rethink and retract his orders, then Rucklehaus would refuse and resign. If that didn’t cause Nixon to rethink and retract his orders, then Bork would carry them out and remain so that Nixon couldn’t replace all three of them and completely subvert the Department of Justice.

    While Judge Bork’s judicial philosophy, which I always found more coherent and interesting than Scalia’s and Thomas’s – even as I disagree with it, is extremely conservative. He has gotten a bad rap in regard to the Saturday Night Massacre.

  161. 161.

    Bobby Thomson

    @efgoldman: the decision says that a general claim of presidential immunity cannot outweigh the public interest in a criminal prosecution, and specifically upheld subpoenas for the Nixon tapes.

    I don’t think there is any meaningful difference between a subpoena duces tecum (for documents) and a subpoena ad testificandum (for testimony).

  165. 165.

    TS

    @Jeffro:

    Let’s get some cameras and recorders in front of the Goopers! Right now they’re having it both ways and paying no price for their tacit acceptance of treason.

    The continuing question “What if Obama had done this”?

  166. 166.

    Another Scott

    @efgoldman: I would have thought I would have remembered Nixon testifying before a grand jury, and I have no recollection of it. FTFNYT tells why – It was in 1975:

    For 11 hours of secret grand jury testimony 36 years ago, Richard M. Nixon, a disgraced former president, fenced with prosecutors over his role in the Watergate scandals, bemoaned politics as a dirty business played by both sides and testily — as he described his own demeanor — suggested he was the victim of a special prosecutor’s office loaded with Democrats.

    The testimony, which Nixon presumably thought would always remain secret, was released by the Nixon Presidential Library and Museum in Yorba Linda, Calif., on Thursday in response to an order by a judge. The transcripts offered a remarkable portrait of Nixon after he left office: bitter at his disgrace and cynical about politics. He presented himself as a victim of governmental abuses by his enemies during his long career in politics, and said that prosecutors, with an eye to ingratiating themselves with the Washington media “and the Georgetown set,” were out to destroy him.

    “In politics, some pretty rough tactics are used,” he said. “We deplore them all.”

    At one point, as he denied that his White House had engaged in anything out of the ordinary, he spoke with grudging admiration of what he said were the hardball tactics used against him by the Kennedy White House, asserting that it had directed the I.R.S. and other government agencies to discredit him as he ran for governor of California.

    “They were pretty smart, I guess,” he said. “Rather than using a group of amateur Watergate bugglers, burglars — well they were bunglers — they used the F.B.I., used the I.R.S. and used it directly by their own orders against, in one instance, a man who had been vice president of the United States, running for governor.”

    By the time Nixon appeared at the grand jury, on June 23 and 24 of 1975, he had, by virtue of his pardon by Gerald R. Ford, immunity from any crimes he had committed, though he was still subject to perjury charges based on what he said to this grand jury. Nixon, a lawyer, repeatedly answered questions in a hedged and clipped manner, often saying he did not recall conversations, some of them just two years old.

    […]

    So, the question of a sitting president being called before a grand jury still stands, I think…

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  169. 169.

    Bobby Thomson

    OT, but Patrick Meehan has decided not to run for re-election, bringing the number of PA open seats to five. Sestak would be a shoe-in to take the seat back but after the complete lack of loyalty the party showed him last year I would imagine he would tell them to stick it.

  171. 171.

    Marcopolo

    @TS: Well, isn’t the answer: 1) When Trump is attacked he fights back—ordering Mueller’s firing isn’t obstructing, it’s counterpunching!; 2) and by the way, Mueller has to quit now—there’s no way he can pursue an unbiased investigation if he knows Trump tried to fire him!

    And no, I’m not watching Fox but I predict that IS what they are saying.

  172. 172.

    Mary G

    I know lots of you all follow Oliver Willis and have been enjoying his twitter series of imaginary conversations, such as:

    "But this is really about the Clintons""Again"
    "But this is really about the Clintons""Again"
    "But this is really about the Clintons"
    "Fuck, Sean, I'm just not believing it. Is anybody buying this shit?"
    "No," Hannity quietly replied, staring at the soul-black tile.— Oliver Willis (@owillis) January 26, 2018

    He has put out a book of them now, called the Deepest State, on Amazon for $1.99, or if you have Kindle Unlimited, free, and he’s psyched 200+ people have bought it, so if you want, check it out.

    ETA: Rats, FYWP always leaves out the line breaks and my attempts to fix them are horrible.

  173. 173.

    Immanentize

    @Adam L Silverman: in the end, Bork did the deed. And didn’t do much to save the DOJ. That sounds like some serious revisionist history, Adam:

    The ”massacre” that occurred Oct. 20, 1973, was the action by Mr. Bork, then Solicitor General of the United States, in dismissing Archibald Cox as the Watergate special prosecutor. It was the culmination of months of legal maneuvering between the White House and Mr. Cox over whether Mr. Nixon would surrender nine tape recordings of conversations in the White House. Some of the tapes had a bearing on allegations that the President participated in a cover-up of the break-in that took place June 17, 1972, at the headquarters of the Democratic National Committee in the Watergate complex here. Order by Nixon Defied

    On Oct 19, the Friday before the dismissal of Mr. Cox, Mr. Nixon refused to accept the order by a Federal appeals court to surrender the tapes and ordered Mr. Cox to drop his investigation.

    On Saturday afternoon Mr. Cox, defying the President, said he would seek a court order effectively forcing the President to turn over the tapes. Mr. Nixon then directed the Attorney General, Elliot L. Richardson, to dismiss Mr. Cox, whom Mr. Richardson had appointed five months earlier.

    Mr. Richardson resigned. The second-ranking official in the Justice Department, Deputy Attorney General William D. Ruckelshaus, was called by the White House chief of staff, Alexander M. Haig Jr., and asked to carry out the dismissal of Mr. Cox.

    ”I simply could not do it,” Mr. Ruckelshaus said in a later interview. He wrote out a letter of resignation, but the White House did not wait to receive it before announcing that Mr. Ruckelshaus himself had been dismissed. ‘I Did the Right Thing’

    That left Mr. Bork, the Solictor General, as Acting Attorney General. He dismissed Mr. Cox on the President’s orders, a move that ignited a storm of criticism from Congress and set the stage for impeachment proceedings against Mr. Nixon.

    Later that year, recalling the events surrounding Mr. Cox’s dismissal, Mr. Bork said in an interview: ”I was thinking of resigning not out of moral considerations. I did not want to be perceived as a man who did the President’s bidding to save my job.”

    He added: ”I had some time to think about it since. I think I did the right thing.

    linky. Doesn’t it worry you that none of the three principals ever received that story in public when they were alive?

  174. 174.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @marcopolo:

    and after prayerful reflection

    Not to be religiously intolerant or anything, but this phrase always makes me want to smack the shit out of the person who said it.

  175. 175.

    Another Scott

    @Corner Stone: Yeah, there were reasonable arguments to be made about “protecting the DoJ”, but Bork wasn’t the guy to do it.

    Wikipedia:

    In his posthumously published memoirs, Bork stated that following the firings, Nixon promised him the next seat on the Supreme Court. Nixon was unable to carry out the promise after resigning in the wake of the Watergate scandal, but eventually, in 1987, Ronald Reagan nominated Bork for the Supreme Court.[17]

    Quid pro quo, anyone?

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  176. 176.

    Marcopolo

    @Bobby Thomson: See my comment @29. I suspect there’s a good chance that District gets remapped to make it slightly more D so the surrounding ones get made more R. It’s a sensible sacrifice with the court order & Meehan’s effup.

  177. 177.

    Adam L Silverman

    @schrodingers_cat:

  179. 179.

    chris

    @jl:

    House GOPers are still flailing away. Makes me wonder how much of the House GOP Mueller might scoop up before he’s done.

    I still think there’s something hidden about Jason Chaffetz’s abrupt departure from the house last year. Or he saw the writing on the wall and wanted no part of it but I doubt that.

  180. 180.

    But her emails!!!

    @Adam L Silverman:

    I keep seeing this without any context. Why are they not happy? Because it takes a huge shit on legal immigrants and even Dreamers (they get deported if they lose their jobs) or because it isn’t bad enough to satisfy them? They want the Dreamers fed to sharks with fricken laser beams attached to their heads?

  181. 181.

    Bill Arnold

    @Adam L Silverman:

    If the President keeps this up, he won’t be able to go back to Trump Tower when he leaves office because New Yorkers will prevent it.

    I’m probably not alone in thinking that there is a reasonably high probability that he’d be strongly encouraged by NYSAG ES to move to a fenced gated community in upstate New York.

  182. 182.

    Gin & Tonic

    @Immanentize: If you’re still around, can I bother you to send that syllabus to Adam to send to me? Don’t want to be a pest about it, but I’m kinda interested.

  183. 183.

    B.B.A.

    @chris: Pretty obvious to me, he was only there for the Hitlery bashing. Once she was out of the picture he lost interest.

  184. 184.

    Immanentize

    @Gin & Tonic: can’t tonight. I’m also pretty sick with a gut infection and the cure (brutal antibiotics) seem worse than the illness. I will be out of work tomorrow so maybe Monday? Today’s class was the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. Timely!

  186. 186.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Corner Stone: @Immanentize: I am simply relating what former Watergate Assistant Special Prosecutor Nick Ackerman told Ari Melber on air. He was intimately involved with investigating and prosecuting Watergate and indicated that Rucklehaus told him this a few years before Rucklehaus died and that it is not part of the recorded history. That Ackerman accepts this as fact/truth is significant. You may do with the information what you will.

  187. 187.

    ? Martin

    @But her emails!!!:

    I keep seeing this without any context. Why are they not happy? Because it takes a huge shit on legal immigrants and even Dreamers (they get deported if they lose their jobs) or because it isn’t bad enough to satisfy them? They want the Dreamers fed to sharks with fricken laser beams attached to their heads?

    For one, they have been clear that a path to citizenship is a non-starter. For two, the ‘chain immigration’ will kill them in a lot of districts. There’s about 22 million voters in this country that are immigrants. The GOP is telling them that their families aren’t welcome. You can get citizenship but your kids can’t? Your spouse can’t? Your parents can’t?

    The GOP knows that these are issues that will drive Democratic turnout to record rates.

  188. 188.

    Adam L Silverman

    @But her emails!!!: Correct. Any path to citizenship for anyone here in an undocumented status is a no go for them. Because they think that is what their base wants. Hence Breitbart accusing the President of being Amnesty Don on its front page today.

  189. 189.

    But her emails!!!

    @? Martin: So both. They want to screw over Dreamers, but don’t want to piss off citizens who have family they also want to become citizens.

  191. 191.

    Gin & Tonic

    @Immanentize: Fuck, no, you need to do it now. I don’t care if you’re sick, my desire to get valuable information at no cost to myself outweighs any minor inconvenience to you.

    Um, maybe that wasn’t phrased elegantly.

    Sure, no problem. Hope you feel better soon. Many antibiotics are hell on my GI tract, too. Obviously I’m in no rush, and am well aware you’re doing me a favor.

  193. 193.

    Feebog

    @efgoldman:

    I agree with Mustang Bobby’s assessment. I would add that although the Clinton matter was a civil rather than criminal matter it does add support to the argument that a President is not immune to a Grand Jury subpoena.

  194. 194.

    Corner Stone

    @Adam L Silverman:

    Ari Melber on air

    Nice catch.
    But don’t get your Cromwells crossed on this. Things can be reported and still not be true. I like Nick just fine, but I still take a dose with every thing he reports as true. He seems like one of those eager Beagle puppies every time he is on air.
    Bork was a piece of shit and deserves all the approbation his namesake has earned.

  195. 195.

    Immanentize

    @Gin & Tonic: are you actually one of my students? You sound like some of them…. Actually, I have a cool group this semester.

    ETA One of them has a big red sticker on his laptop that says “I support Trump.” He is one of my best students so far. I haven’t asked him about the sticker yet….

  196. 196.

    Gvg

    @Adam L Silverman: I don’t buy it. Bork was supposedly nominated for the Supream Court as payback for being Nixon’s man. There are too many times when someone could have supported him before now. Secret stories like this are appealing but considering how Bork acted then and afterwards, it needs a LOT of supporting evidence. Now it gets said? Aren’t all three men dead now? And what advantage would now accrue to this just spoken up defender now? Uhuh.

  197. 197.

    Mike in DC

    I feel like we need an Xzibit Pimp My Ride meme for this:
    Yo Dawg, I heard you like to obstruct justice, so I installed an extra obstructor, so you can obstruct while you obstruct

  199. 199.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @Adam L Silverman: and @Cheryl Rofer:
    These have been my positions from the first, as you have probably noticed. Trump firing Mueller is not likely, because he has certainly already tried. The moment he got pushback, he folded like a cheap suit. He is a coward of legendary proportions, more chickenshit than I have ever seen. It’s also why he’s not going to start a war. He can hold all the cards, all the power, but if it even involves having a sharp conversation with someone, he is too afraid.

    Something kind of similar applies to his base. They love to talk about rebellion, but what they really love to do is talk. There will be no widespread violence, only an increase in normal hate crime and domestic terrorism levels. These assholes have all the courage necessary to harass someone who can’t fight back, as long as they can do it without getting out of a chair.

  200. 200.

    ? Martin

    @But her emails!!!: Well, to be fair, it’s hard to sort out what Republican legislators actually want broadly. But one thing we know is that they can’t quit the billionaire nutjobs that fund their party and they can’t quit the white supremacists that they rely on for votes.

    This is demographic suicide, and they know it, which is why they’re all retiring. They got their tax cut and now they’re going to nope themselves the fuck out.

  203. 203.

    lgerard

    I find the idea of Mueller patiently bidding his time for a few decades, just waiting for the opportunity to finally get even for that golf club dispute, positively hilarious.

  204. 204.

    Jeffro

    @TS: “What if Obama had done 1/10 of this?”, right? It’s ridiculous.

    Stormy Daniels could have been Trumpov’s cut-out to to the Kremlin, and GOP Congressmen would still be demanding an investigation into either Hillary’s pocket calculator (IT HAS A CHIP!) or the two FBI agents’ secret Valentine’s Day notes to each other (do you like me? check ‘yes’ or ‘no’) or both. Anything but the obvious or patriotic.

  208. 208.

    Immanentize

    @Adam L Silverman: ha. So true! It might have been Richardson who supported Bork kinda when he was nominated to the Court. All these guys are/we’re deep died in the wool Republicans….

  209. 209.

    Aleta

    Fwiw, Earlier this year the NYT put out a story (two undisclosed sources) that Trump had ordered McGahn to convince Sessions not to recuse. I think it was the story that got attention for describing how angry Trump was when Sessions wouldn’t agree (according to other witnesses). And for what Trump supposedly said about wanting a Robert Kennedy who would have his back or a Roy Cohn who’d fix things for him.

    The day after that story appeared, it was announced that McGahn’s wife was leaving her job in the administration as counselor to Mnuchin at Treasury, which she’d taken in 2017. She returned to her old job as staff director of the House Financial Services Committee, where she’d been since 2013.

    And, probably nothing, but McGahn’s chief of staff is married to Brett Talley, the guy to whom Trump offered a federal judgeship in Alabama. He was profoundly unqualified, even for this administration. And didn’t disclose on forms and conflict of interest questions that his wife works for McGahn. He had to withdraw his name in December.

  214. 214.

    Millard Filmore

    @M. Bouffant:

    I’m eagerly awaiting the gun battle between the Secret Service & the U.S. Marshals

    I would expect the Trump team to simply hole up against the U.S. Marshals in a hostage-standoff type situation.

  217. 217.

    JWR

    @Frankensteinbeck:

    He is a coward of legendary proportions, more chickenshit than I have ever seen.

    Also too, didn’t he avoid getting too close to the border when he went to North Korea? (Unlike steely eyed VP Pence.)

  219. 219.

    Another Scott

    @Cheryl Rofer: You meant, Lawfare, I assume?

    […]

    A few observations:

    First, the Times’s reporting demonstrates just how out of control the president had become in June, less than a month after firing James Comey as FBI director. A few of his tweets from that time offer a stark reminder that the special counsel’s investigation—and Rosenstein’s appointment of Mueller—weighed heavily even in his public statements:

    Donald J. Trump ✔ @realDonaldTrump

    You are witnessing the single greatest WITCH HUNT in American political history – led by some very bad and conflicted people! #MAGA

    6:57 AM – Jun 15, 2017 62,192 Replies 35,085 Retweets 118,640 likes

    Donald J. Trump ✔ @realDonaldTrump

    I am being investigated for firing the FBI Director by the man who told me to fire the FBI Director! Witch Hunt

    8:07 AM – Jun 16, 2017
    63,421 Replies 47,571 Retweets 149,766 likes

    Presumably, the “conflicts” Trump refers to in these tweets involve Mueller’s work for WilmerHale, his onetime membership at the Trump National Golf Club and that he had interviewed for the position of FBI director, as the Times describes the president fulminating about in private.

    […]

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  226. 226.

    Lyrebird

    @Bill Arnold:

    The best such communities are further upstate, though.

    i don’t know, the birding is not so good near Staten Island I would guess, but the poetic justice of Orangemandias cooling his heels at Riker’s Island, where the wrongly-convicted Central Park young men were incarcerated, would be so rich.

  227. 227.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Cheryl Rofer: In this case Hannity wrote a column on 13 JUN 2017 advising the President to fire Mueller. Given the confirmed reporting that Hannity and the President speak almost daily, usually after the President watches Hannity’s show, it makes you wonder what they discussed around this time.

  231. 231.

    M. Bouffant

    @efgoldman: Not in a Swiss hotel.

    Washington (CNN)First lady Melania Trump’s plane arrived in West Palm Beach, Florida, Thursday, the same week she canceled her planned trip with her husband to Davos, Switzerland, at the last minute.

  232. 232.

    Raoul

    @Adam L Silverman: O/T but I continue to be amazed that convicted bank fraudster and admitted teen boy diddler Dennis Hastert’s name is used regularly in conjunction with a ‘rule’ imposed by the GOP House. Sheesh.

  235. 235.

    Mike G

    The president suggested he could be investigated for obstruction of justice as part of the Russia investigation because he was “fighting back”

    I’m surprised he didn’t pull the “Because I’m such a strong Christian” BS, which was Dollhands’ response as to why he gets audited by the IRS so much.

  239. 239.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Another Scott: This thread is dead, but I’ll note that Nixon’s Fifth Amendment rights as a person didn’t apply there because he had a blanket pardon.

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